The Yorkshire & Humber AHSN’s Improvement Academy has been championing use of QI training for healthcare staff and patient/carer partners with more than 2,000 people taking part in the programme to date.

The new partnership with Wessex AHSN will enable healthcare professionals in the area to have free access to an online foundation course (bronze level) that provides an introduction to QI methodologies.

The objective is to:

Provide basic information about QI approaches

Offer practical examples of how QI can be applied in practice

Help trainees recognise that everyone has a role to play in QI

Provide a foundation knowledge prior to access to more advanced QI training

Participants who complete the course receive a certificate that can be used as evidence of CPD activity for personal or professional re-validation portfolios.

“The module will form the foundation of the QI Science Unit, part of the Wessex Quality Improvement Programme.

“As the ‘Learn’ level, the module will help to ensure participants taking part in the more advanced ‘Live’ and ‘Lead’ levels all come with a common understanding of the important QI concepts such as the Model for Improvement/PDSA cycles etch and we hope the online training will be widely used in Wessex.”

The content and materials for the Bronze online modules are based around material originally produced for the ‘1000 Lives Plus Campaign’ by NHS Wales, where one in seven staff have completed the training.

As well as offering Bronze level training, the Yorkshire & Humber AHSN’s Improvement Academy also provides further advanced training including:

Silver training for individuals

Silver training for teams

Gold training ‘train the trainer’ for improvement leaders

Understanding and Reducing Variation in healthcare

Achieving Behaviour Change for Patient Safety

The Science of Improvement

For further information about the Improvement Academy’s work in this important area, please visit its website